Anticonvulsant+muscle relaxant alcoholism treatment : 70-90 percent claimed success

[Greg]

Anticonvulsant+muscle relaxant alcoholism treatment : 70-90 percent claimed success

I have just copied part of this statement over from another thread, as it directly applies to everyone who reads this one!

Everyone, please don't hang out and wait for me to deliver a magic cure-all statement on this forum! I myself am trying to stay sober for as many days as I can, even before I find out about the new idea. I may only end up getting a very generalized briefing about this treatment at the end of this week, and may then have to be transferred to a doctor closer to my home if my current doc (who is 200 km away) won't directly treat me. He likes to be able to closely monitor all patients on any new treatments, especially anything unusual, and he has never been comfortable with the distance between him and I.

It is quite likely I will have to spend weeks looking for a closer doctor who is open-minded enough to actually prescribe this method to me on any sort of long-term basis, although I am going to try my best to ask the current doc if he will at least start me off on it, as I will offer to live with my mother initially and she is in the same general area as he is (only 8 km away or so).

Edit : Also, from an email I had directly from the hospital in Melbourne where this is being done, it is NOT a set protocol for every patient!! They said it is tailored individually for each person based on their history, which could (I am assuming) take into account pre-existing or co-existing problems, if any. If a person is purely alcoholic, with no underlying depression or other serious psychological problems, then the idea may well be similar to what was originally reported in our media, i.e. a muscle spasm drug (we would assume baclofen) plus an anti-convulsant. I have read a couple of presentations given a couple of years ago by the Professor now running the program, and when it came to the subject of anti-convulsants playing a role in alcoholism/addiction, he didn't only refer to topiramate/Topamax. He also referred to valproate/valproic acid (Depakote, Epilim, other brand names), gabapentin (Neurontin), and pregabalin (Lyrica). In a quit-marijuana program he started at a Sydney hospital a number of years ago, he was using the anti-convulsant tiagabine (Gabitril) and none of the others (but with a few other types of drugs).

For all these reasons, it is almost certainly not going to be possible for me to state a set protocol or one single pair of medications on this forum at the end of this week that everyone can start using as a cure. I myself am still keeping high-dose baclofen, with strong sedatives, up my sleeve in case all this does not work out for me, for one reason or another.

I am sorry for initially being so enthusiastic about this, and for misleading anyone into thinking it was a single-protocol cure-all. Apart from not anticipating the delays in finding out more details, I also foolishly took too much notice of the over-simplified things the TV show reporters (who are not technically minded) said when they initially aired this whole story on Australian television.

[Greg]

Anticonvulsant+muscle relaxant alcoholism treatment : 70-90 percent claimed success

There is one more thing, which is my opinion only, but which applies to myself and may apply to others here.

Taking medications for addiction, be it this treatment, bac, Antabuse, or others, may be a large part or even nearly all of the solution for people who have fairly intact lives and a variety of activities in their life, a job, a relationship, etc. In other words, those who still have meaningful things in their lives apart from drinking.

For those more like myself, with long-term ongoing issues such as (just using examples from my life) social isolation/anxiety, depression, no relationship, no job, etc. then I think medication can only be a first step. In my own case, I know I will keep on seeking out an escape or "high" if I don't make numerous changes to my life at the same time as using medication to overcome cravings, because that is how I have lived for over 20 years now. Medication can surely help a great deal, don't get me wrong. However I never learned how to form proper long-term relationships, and replaced nearly all my former interests and activities with drinking (or hangovers the day after drinking) years ago. All that time each day will need to be filled with new things, and there will need to be new things to look forward to each day, to keep the lifestyle of drinking and escape from reality out of my daily thinking.

So many people I have heard speaking at AA (and I am not an AA nut) say the very same thing...well at least the ones who ended up having no life outside of alcohol, or who never really started adult life without alcohol or drugs. Several of my close alcoholic friends in my home town have almost exactly this same situation to face up to if/when they quit drinking, even though their lives aren't identical to my own.

Please don't think I am preaching or trying to direct anyone to AA, but I feel the need to be totally realistic about the overall treatment of alcoholism.

[spacebebe01]

Anticonvulsant+muscle relaxant alcoholism treatment : 70-90 percent claimed success

You dont need to apologise Greg Im glad you told us about it when you did, also the fact that it seems to be tailored to each individual is great. I do hope you eventually are going to get the help you have been looking for.

I agree with you on the lifestlye changes, I also gave up friends hobbies work whatever for drink, that only difference is that I have kids there for me. But I do find times when I dont actually want to drink, I just want to kind of blur the time somehow, because thats what Im used to doing. ButI dont think new activities actually change that, maybe they will help but I dont actually know what will take that feeling away.

[Greg]

Anticonvulsant+muscle relaxant alcoholism treatment : 70-90 percent claimed success

Just another quick update....I must assume my doctor spoke with the treatment team in Melbourne yesterday morning, but I have not yet heard back from him via email. As he does not work again until next Wednesday afternoon (his days are Wed-Sat), I may have to wait until then to phone him and see what the results of the phone call were. I live about 200 km from his medical practice, so am not able to call in at short notice most of the time...but I had expected him to email me by now.

If the whole thing turns out to be a non-result for some reason, then I will commence a combination of baclofen and topiramate around the middle of next week, and report on my results in a few weeks. I will try to titrate up on both drugs as quickly as I can, but within sensible limits. As I have 25 mg baclofen tablets, and have tolerated 3/4 of a pill during tests, I will likely start with a total daily dose of 25 mg, but then try to go higher pretty fast. With the Topamax, I will try to start using the guidelines outlined for epilepsy patients on the rxlist.com medication website, which says to start on 2 x 25 mg per day for the first week, 2 x 50 mg for the second week, and so on. I know this is quicker than is recommended for alcoholism, but it must be safe and tolerable, otherwise it would not be suggested.

Obviously, the combination of baclofen and topiramate, both increasing pretty quickly, may cause some problems, but there is always the option of backing off/slowing down on one or both drugs.

Anyway, I will keep on posting about this process.

spacebebe01;1353689 wrote: You dont need to apologise Greg Im glad you told us about it when you did, also the fact that it seems to be tailored to each individual is great. I do hope you eventually are going to get the help you have been looking for.

I agree with you on the lifestlye changes, I also gave up friends hobbies work whatever for drink, that only difference is that I have kids there for me. But I do find times when I dont actually want to drink, I just want to kind of blur the time somehow, because thats what Im used to doing. ButI dont think new activities actually change that, maybe they will help but I dont actually know what will take that feeling away.

Sorry I didn't respond earlier Space, but I have not been here much. I know that feeling you talk about, and how activities (AA meetings included, in my case) don't seem to get rid of it easily. I remember reading that alcoholics sometimes say they have always felt uneasy and unable to relax, and uncomfortable being themselves without a substance to blot those feelings out. That is a big reason why I drank for so many years, and definitely the main reason for my constant relapsing at the moment. I keep on looking for alternative highs and alternative emotional relief methods, the latest being herbs like damiana and desert skullcap, which are said to be mild cannabis mimics. I used Xanax + cannabis for 19-20 months as my only prolonged period of abstinence from alcohol during my whole adult life. I hope you are doing OK.

[StuckinLA]

Anticonvulsant+muscle relaxant alcoholism treatment : 70-90 percent claimed success

Hi Greg, I haven't been following your thread too closely, but I do want to jump in real quick. I've never taken topa, but from what I've read around here it's not a safety issue with going up quickly, it's just that in the case of alcoholism it simply doesn't work if you go faster than the guidelines recommend. Something about it needing to build up over time? Others (especially on the topa thread) would know a whole lot more.

[spacebebe01]

Anticonvulsant+muscle relaxant alcoholism treatment : 70-90 percent claimed success

Stuck does have a point there Greg, most people on the topa thread will say that going up quickly does no good at all and you need to start low and build up for effectiveness for alcoholism. I also worry about going up too fast on bac, this could land you with problems. I see that you want fast results but maybe its more slow and steady does win the race here. You have spent time waiting to start this so what difference will spending an extra couple of weeks going slower make.

I want you to succeed with this Greg thats why I want you to take care and not try to rush things.

[Greg]

Anticonvulsant+muscle relaxant alcoholism treatment : 70-90 percent claimed success

Thanks StuckinLA and Spacebebe for your common sense advice. I get a bit too frantic and impatient at times, and lose sight of the bigger picture. Obviously, given that I have waited this long, it does not make sense to want to rush either baclofen or Topamax just to try and save a couple of weeks' treatment start-up time. I have already had trouble with bac several times, probably due to trying to rush up to high doses, so I should (and will) titrate up on both bac and Topa (or another anticonvulsant if that is what this new treatment idea involves) according to accepted guidelines this time.

I have just emailed my doctor to ask if he is going to email me the treatment details, or if he instead wants to talk to me in person before revealing anything. He should have spoken to the Professor in Melbourne about the whole thing last Friday morning, and I'm a bit surprised that I have not heard anything yet. If I lived near my doctor's practice then obviously he would be expecting me to drop in for a consultation, but as he has been happy in the past to keep in touch mostly via email due to the 200 km distance between us, I was not sure what he wanted me to do in this case. He usually answers his emails by Wednesday each week, so I hope to hear what is going on by this coming Wednesday.

As I have always been saying, once I know anything concrete, I will post about it on this forum.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Anticonvulsant+muscle relaxant alcoholism treatment : 70-90 percent claimed success

I found some information that would indicate that this is not the first time that topa and bac have been used in combination. I think there was a study related to just that combo. (And the information also mentioned Gabapentin, but it was not found effective! Though in that one it looks like it was cocaine.)

I may be wrong and I apologize in advance, but if I have the time I will track it down. Don't hold breath! Sorry!

I'm glad you've given some more thought to your schedule, Greg. What's a couple of months for a lifetime of absolute freedom, you know?
And let's not forget that Ameisen had been taking bac daily for a year before he titrated down and then bac up when he began his experiment toward indifference. Time is the great equalizer!

[Greg]

Anticonvulsant+muscle relaxant alcoholism treatment : 70-90 percent claimed success

Hi Ne, glad to hear from you. I know how much research you do when it comes to medications, and I am not surprised that you would have heard of any previous study that was done on a bac+Topa combination. Don't worry about chasing it up if your time is limited, as I will try to look it up myself via PubMed or other sources.

Regarding gabapentin, I recently read a few surprisingly positive results of it being helpful with marijuana dependence, but I know it has been disappointing in other applications. At one stage it was being touted as a good treatment for insomnia in detoxified alcoholics, but trazodone has been compared to it and apparently been found better for that application. Personally I have only found trazodone to be a good sleep medication out of the two.

Yes, you and others are right about the short term versus longer term view. I also remember Ameisen saying in his book that he had been taking baclofen at 180 mg/day with no relief of alcohol cravings, but that 270 did the job (finally) for him. At least I know I have HDB up my sleeve if nothing else works, although I will have to take it much slower than I did in the past.

I hope all has been going well for you

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Anticonvulsant+muscle relaxant alcoholism treatment : 70-90 percent claimed success

Super-duper! Thanks for asking!

I was wrong.
It was a suggestion that the two in combination may work together. And for nicotine dependence, too! I think, once I straighten out this ADD thing, I'm going to try topa and bac in combo to quit smoking. Maybe in December. (Still, if you get a chance, look for it will you? I'm very interested, obviously!)

Because believe it or not, I do not relish the idea of titrating up to the heights again, just to kick the nasty tobacco. Though I suppose I will if I absolutely have to. 'cause I won't be a slave to anything anymore. Dammit.

Hang in, Greg. You're almost opening the book to the last chapter in the addiction volume. And then...woop!!! (is that a place in Australia? :H)

bacatcha. :l

[Greg]

Anticonvulsant+muscle relaxant alcoholism treatment : 70-90 percent claimed success

I'm glad you are doing well Ne, and I hope you manage to kick the smoking too. One of my friends is having a large battle with nicotine, and not winning so far. I'm just thankful I didn't take up smoking along with drinking!

I have not yet found any formal medical reference about bac + Topa, but I did hear back from my own doctor about all this, so read my next post...

Take care
Greg

[Greg]

Anticonvulsant+muscle relaxant alcoholism treatment : 70-90 percent claimed success

OK, Here are the basics...

The anti-convulsant used in this treatment idea is definitely topiramate (Topamax), and baclofen is definitely also part of the treatment. I can confirm that these two drugs are involved. Regarding dosage, baclofen is titrated up slowly just as with any other application of it, while I don't know about topiramate dosage. Regarding upper dose limits, I don't think bac ever gets up into the amounts that would be regarded as "high dose baclofen" by members of this board, and I assume that the topiramate dosage is either 25 or 50 mg first week, then increasing each week by the same amount.

It gets complicated after this, as several other medications are used as needed, e.g. antidepressants, anxiolytics, sleep agents, antipsychotics. Basically, the idea is to also fix up problems like depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbances.

I am going to have to do this all myself, as my doctor regards it as too bizarre and dangerous. Given the fact that alcoholism is so dangerous that only 5-10 percent of sufferers recover, I would think that almost any alternative is better, but that's how it is.

My personal treatment is going to be baclofen as titrated up normally, topiramate/Topamax also as titrated up normally, and an antidepressant combination I have not yet figured out. I am hoping that baclofen+topiramate treats anxiety enough for me not to need anything else.

I will post any positive results...

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Anticonvulsant+muscle relaxant alcoholism treatment : 70-90 percent claimed success

Greg!
Great news!
Sort of.

So. Be aware, be aware, be aware.
Any chance you can check in here regularly? Any chance you want some help figuring all this stuff out? It's not just the support, though that is vitally important, often underestimated and may be the make-or-break between success and failure for many of us. It is also some combined wisdom and (most importantly) the ability to find information and then pass it along with a bit of objectivity--but with an almost complete understanding of what you're going through.

That may sound like bravado (I don't know. Does it?) But I cannot detail, nor would I, the resources behind the people at MWO. We're rather impressive, collectively!

And Greg, given that you struggle with the connecting/connection stuff (both in 3D and literally with your internet service) having people around and aware is kind of important, isn't it?

Many hugs, Huge BRAVO! and lots of strength and courage coming your way.

[Greg]

Anticonvulsant+muscle relaxant alcoholism treatment : 70-90 percent claimed success

Ne/Neva Eva;1357142 wrote: Greg!
Great news!
Sort of.

So. Be aware, be aware, be aware.
Any chance you can check in here regularly? Any chance you want some help figuring all this stuff out? It's not just the support, though that is vitally important, often underestimated and may be the make-or-break between success and failure for many of us. It is also some combined wisdom and (most importantly) the ability to find information and then pass it along with a bit of objectivity--but with an almost complete understanding of what you're going through.

That may sound like bravado (I don't know. Does it?) But I cannot detail, nor would I, the resources behind the people at MWO. We're rather impressive, collectively!

And Greg, given that you struggle with the connecting/connection stuff (both in 3D and literally with your internet service) having people around and aware is kind of important, isn't it?

Many hugs, Huge BRAVO! and lots of strength and courage coming your way.

Thanks Ne, I wanted to reply here even though we have talked about it via PM.

I won't have many people during this period who I will be able to talk to in person, as I live in a small town and most of my old friends have moved away, and the social life here is all about the pubs and clubs. My family is also very small, as I'm an only child and so is my mother. As for existing friends, several drink heavily themselves, and one in particular is far too depressed and lost in alcoholism himself to be able to give me any help at the moment. I would go back to AA again, but many groups are strongly anti-medication. I guess I could just go along for the social support, and not mention using medications, but most meetings are an hour's drive away (one-way). I think it's going to be difficult to drive anywhere for that long to begin with, if I quit alcohol again and do this treatment sober, as my sleep is hopeless for many weeks/months after a period of heavy drinking.

I do get what you are saying, and I would definitely have the greatest chance of success with people in my life. I think one way could be to volunteer for work at places like charities, and also a cat rescue place in Sydney. In fact I'd say that staying with my mother in Sydney for a couple of weeks could be the best way to make this work, as being in a small rural town is depressing and isolating if you're trying not to drink!!

Thanks for your support, I'll post about any progress I make.

[DfromCT]

Anticonvulsant+muscle relaxant alcoholism treatment : 70-90 percent claimed success

baclofan;1353460 wrote: I strongly suggest as my genuine concern for your well being that you get yourself much better educated doctor...just my 2 cents.

Btw, my pdoc told me that there's no problem stopping topiramate cold turkey unless it's been prescribed as an anticonvulsant, so I've stopped in recent past...no w/ d symptoms whatsoever.

Ps, restarted topiramate over a week ago - slow taper (50 mg currently - planning on reaching much higher level if needed - script calls for 200) with conjunction of 40 mg of baclofen (20 mg flexibility left on the script), 30 mg mirtazapine, 2.5 ml LDN and doing fantastic! :undercover:

Actually, I appreciate your concern, but I'm doing VERY well on Naltrexone, with out the dummying up side affects of Topamax. The "uniformed" doctor was dead on accurate that Topamax (or Topiramate) is NOT FDA approved for alcohol treatment, nor has there been AMA verified double blind studies to prove its effectiveness. So, my question becomes this: Why use something that is not approved, hasn't been proven (though I agree MANY here have had great results) when there's a drug that is approved, doesn't have the side affects (also known as "dummying up") that Topa has?

Phenobarbital is the most common anti-convulsant drug that epileptics are prescribed, (or at least it was about 20 years ago when I was dating one) and I wouldn't think of putting that in my system. Then again, I didn't think twice about polluting it with alcohol for 30+ years....